At 11 kilometres
from the city centre Essendon Airport is Melbourne's closest airport, offering passengers
fast connections to the Central Business District and major transport links.

Co-founders Luke
Hampshire and Alexander Robinson aim to import the business model of the
successful US startup Surf Air, which offers a similar service in California.

Several hundred
members will pay a joining fee of A$1000 and a monthly fee of A$2550 for
unlimited flights between the three cities, with plans to extend to Brisbane
and Adelaide in the near future.

"The several
hundred we are looking for are keen as mustard to save time," Mr Hampshire
says. "It is going to save them about two hours per round trip. We
are working off a membership number. We have a lot of people showing
significant interest in it now. Once we reach that break-even number we
launch."

"There is
really no holding at Essendon or Bankstown," Mr Hampshire says, adding
that members can check in just 15 minutes before departure.

The company has
leased the first of three King Air 350 eight-seater aircrafts from an aircraft
management company in the US. They will
be added to the air operator's certificate (AOC) of an Australian
company licensed for regular public transport (RPT) and then dry leased. Mr Hampshire says the use of a company who is
already licensed for RPT will ensure the service withstands any potential
changes to charter flight regulations.

The company hopes
to secure the numbers to commence operations in the second quarter of 2016.In the past decade, passenger numbers at Melbourne's airports have
increased by 7.5 per cent compared with Sydney Airport's 3.8 per cent over the
same period. Melbourne is home to Australia's largest 24-hour curfew free
airport, seeing about 750,000 passengers a month and generates an extra A$590
million for the Victorian economy.